Serenity now

I’m back! Ha, what a joke I am.

I have been procrastinating for weeks now to work out where and how to journal.

Time to go old school. My long lost blog from six years ago that I at least give a little bit of attention to.

My mental health is in the complete toilet now. I now experience a daily struggle to keep on top of depression. I’m not sure if it is depression really – more like nihilistic capitulation to my past self’s inability to get on top of things.

I took a long way home after dropping off L at the shops and was sitting at the lights for a few minutes. Summer in North Queensland is the most beautiful thing. Stifling humidity.

I looked at the road, concrete and bitumen. All dry and cracked. Ugly. Small dead weeds poking through here and there. I thought of it once being earth and vegetation. But instead, we humans cover it all with our paintbrush of infrastructure.

Almost forgot myself is a song I listen to a lot these days. I have almost done so, though.

does by butt look big in this ?

I hate being fat

I always have. It has been the curse of my life. Almost everything you do or try to do is affected negatively by being fat.

I had a brief reprieve in my early 20s, when I was a normal weight for my height. I only achieved that weight by developing an eating disorder, but was able to get out of that successfully when I got married. Either side of that I have been fat. Probably at my worst I would of been over 140 kg. I’m not too sure what my highest weight was because that is the weight where normal scales are not up to the task.

I want to do so much, but am held back by it. It always gets in the way. Always there to stop me.

I tend to forget that I am such a fat bastard. It can be blissful during those times, but there is always a reminder just around the corner.

Yesterday I went on my regular group ride. I can comfortably keep with this group – I would be considered one of the stronger riders in the group actually. They are all lean. Most cyclists are. A few of the guys regularly get together to climb on of the few hills we have around Townsville. I want to go, but cannot. I simply cannot climb. My weight just makes what is an effort for the other guys an absolutely gut wrenching event. I tried to climb many many times, but as soon as the grade gets over 5% I am gone, In granny gear and almost unable to turn the pedals.

Anyway, this means that I don’t wear shorts over my cycling pants like normal commuting days ( I worked out early on that abuse from cars is greatly reduced if I wear shorts), so I was leaving work and walked past one of the guys, saying goodbye on the way.

I could see that what he was seeing looked wrong.

He is a good guy – I am not saying anything bad against him – he is just reacting to what he is seeing.

He was fighting back a smirk with great difficulty, and started to jumble his words, probably started making a joke in his head which was being defused by the fact he didn’t want to embarrass me.

I know this could be paranoia, but I was feeling comfortable, but of course it looked ridiculous, probably like an overstuffed sausage in a colourful skin.

I am going back to wearing shorts, nobody thinks anything of you if you wear shorts.

Things I miss the most

So, I have been on this diet for a little while now, certainly enough to form the habit of eating a completely different way.

Every day is a battle however, I don’t feel like I am 100% out of the woods yet.

What are the things I miss the most ?

Toast – especially when there is runny egg yolk that needs to be soaked up.
Pancakes – I have become so obsessed with pancakes I find myself doodling them when talking on the phone.
Sugar – only really the half teaspoon I put in my coffee really.
Mashed potato – probably my favourite thing in the world.
Rice – I’ve been making some really nice green currys of late, and damn would a cup of rice go well with them.
Flour – you know, the stuff that goes in cakes,biscuits, tarts,scones,muffins aaaarrgghh

I still find myself getting a little queasy in the gut sometimes, and I’m sort of not really enjoying what I’m eating. For the moment I am going to continue because it seems to be working well. I will worry about what to do after I lose 30kg.

Diet update

well it has been about three weeks since I started a complete change in diet.

I would say that the first two weeks of this was one hell of an ordeal. This was a complete change in what and how I eat, and initially I actually felt quite ill in the stomach.

Eating absolutely no sugar or carbohydrates of any kind (except that found in fruit) is one incredible challenge. Processed food is off the list as well. I find when I go to the supermarket, there is no need to walk down 90% of the aisles.

I think at mid week two I really had some doubts that I was going to be able to continue, but for once I actually found some fortitude and kept going.

A couple of observations I can offer for this initial process

1. I quite quickly stopped being hungry and pretty much had to force myself to eat a lot of the time.

2. A couple of days I entered my food into a calorie counting website and found that 60% of the calories I was eating was coming from fat, which is ok I guess (from what I’ve read)

3. You really have to plan ahead – if you don’t, you will fail.

Well after this initial three weeks, I have lost 3.8kg, and I really do believe this is fat loss, not water. I am really never hungry, and I really don’t seem to be eating a lot of food.

I really feel in the groove now. I am not lusting after chips, chocolate or anything sweet.

Hopefully the weight loss I seem to be experiencing will continue.

The only thought I have in the back of my mind is that I really don’t enjoy eating meat so much, but to get the job done I am going to continue doing what I am doing.

another day, another diet.

I’ve been on a diet for what seems my whole life. Well, there have been times where I’ve been on the ‘eat everything without a care’ diet, but that is not a true ‘suffering’ sort of diet.

The only way I’ve ever been able to lose weight in the past is via out and out starvation. When I was around 19 I used this very successfully so go from 130kg down to 80kg. When I say starvation I mean eating nothing – for days. It probably worked well at the time because I was young and could get away with such an extreme method.

The last twenty years have been different. A lot of false starts. Not fad type diets, just me getting started on a low calorie program – the usual sort of stuff.

So over and over I would fail. I really had no plan, just cut down and hope for the best.

I’ve always been against the low carb movement. I think Atkins had a bit of a bad name, but now everyone has heard of the Paleo movement. I’ve always wanted to be a vegetarian, so really didn’t give any of these sorts of diets more than a sideways glance. My diet has always included carbs, even when eating low calorie.

Two people have now changed my mind on this, and I have decided to give it a go.

The first is quite well known, Drew Carey. He was always very overweight right through his career and it was sort of his ‘thing’ to be a big guy. He lost a lot of weight and looks amazing. He even replied to a tweet I directed to him.

The other person is a photographer that lives on the Gold Coast, Adam Weathered.

I first saw him mentioned in the ex footballer, Matt Roger’s, Instagram mentioning how much weight he had lost.

From what I can tell Adam has followed a clean eating, low carb eating plan and lost over 100kg very quickly. He is now an accomplished cyclist and finished Ironman Cairns last year.

Adam pretty much personifies what I wanted my life to become over five years ago but have failed so dismally to do. Pictures like this equally motivate and depress me, but I can honestly say I have never tried to follow a strict eating plan for any great length of time.

I have taken a week to finish this post and have some further posts in the works with some observations of the diet. These will follow.

a change in sleep habits

I am wanting to go back to a sleep habit that I did for a short while ago many years ago.
It’s simply really – be in bed by 10pm with a view to wake up early.

The main goal of this is to have a rested morning without any rush. It would be good to get down to around a 4:30 am wake up, which would give me a good two hours to wake up and hopefully get some work done on my various projects.

So last night, I give it a go with a view to see if I could make a small change. I’m not wanting to just flick the switch and start doing these new hours. I was in bed around 10:15, and I read a book for a short while. My fitbit tracker shows me going to sleep at around 10:40pm, which sounds about right. I have an alarm set for 5:10am, and I remember turning it off, but I definitely didn’t get out of bed.

Fitbit log shows me moving around at 5:50am, which is ok. A start anyway.

I have to turn over a new leaf

I do, I really must do actually.

Looking back at anything I have blogged, I am one miserable bastard.

I never use to be, but I have become one. Life hasn’t turned out like I thought it might – some of my own doing, some from things out of my control.

Being happy being depressed is what I tend to do. It’s like I have become comfortable being a sad sack. Thinking about things gone wrong and really beating myself up about it.

Procrastination is a big evil in my life, and has caused a lot of my problems. I always leave things until it is too late to fix. Never being proactive. Wasting away hours in front of the new idiot box, social networking.

I read a post I did on my 44th birthday. It told of how I was going to kick arse and take names. Really get a hold of my life, all the usual ‘Ima Gunna’ stuff. Bit like this post really, but I think I am going to do things differently.

The only task I am giving myself is this :

STOP THINKING ABOUT THE PAST

Easy really.

So no more depressive, wrist cutting posts. Only good stuff from now on.

Domain Hell – part 2

Well. Have I just gone through the strangest experience I have ever had regarding a domain name.

My domain (this one) expired on the sixth of February after a couple of failed transfer attempts. I really wasn’t too concerned at the time because I just resigned myself to paying 1&1 the fifteen bucks to renew.

Then the hell started.. Slow contact and wanting me to pay high fees for recovering my domain.

So the slow replied continued, and eventually, after a terse email, they replied back to tell me that the huge fees are being waived (still without explaining what they were for), and I could renew my domain. Their Billing team would set it up and then their renewal team would get back to me.

Ok. That sounded good. I was happy.

This takes me to last Friday where I check the WHOIS on the domain, just for something to do, and to my surprise it is now registered to a gentleman in Germany.

Um.. ok.

So I straight away email 1&1 support, to ask why this was so. No response of course. A couple more emails over the next couple of days, still no reply.

I was starting to get a pit in my stomach over this. Doing research on experiences from other people, these things usually do not end well, so yeah, I was getting nervous.

Then on Monday things went from bad to worse. I loaded up ‘my’ domain and was greeted with this :

I was losing any hope of ICANN being able to do anything for me now. Things were looking real bad. I got to the stage where I decided to let it go and waste no more time on it.

I then drafted what would be my final email to 1&1. It went like this (censored version)

I hope you F___ing choke on MY domain you F____ing C___s!

I’m not sure why I didn’t send it right there and then, but have every intention to do so.

So then this morning I get an email from them. Here was the bit that made me both happy and sad.

You have ordered a change of provider for the domain

adayinthe.com

In order for this to be carried out, we require the explicit agreement of
the domain owner or the domain’s administrative contact (Admin-C).

It was great that they were still doing something. Bad that it required the permission of the domain owner, who wasn’t me.

I straight away emailed them, but the next email from them informed me that it was all done and dusted. Domain was in my account, in my name.

I was a little shocked to be honest. Sort of one of those times where something good happens to you that you simply cannot believe happened.

There is still some concern though. They have not taken any money for this, and the domain is now registered till 2017, so another year has been added to it.

I am going to transfer this domain to another registrar, even if it means blowing fifteen dollars. I will never deal with this company EVER again.

Domain Hell

Well.. It has been a horrid week in domain name ownership land.

The domain I have attached to this domain (adayinthe.com) has been in limbo since it failed to be renewed on the sixth.

Now I use to run my own web hosting business, and at one stage had around three hundred customers. Many of them I would register domains for, making a modest markup (none really) while hosting their web page. I do have some good stories about this time which will work their way out of my brain as they come to me.

Anyway, the point is, What as happened to me really should not of happened. The logo at the head of this post is the company and question, and I advise anyone and everyone to avoid them like the bubonic plague.

See, when a domain is not renewed, it should go through a period where it is unregistered. This company actually renewed my domain, and is now pretty much holding me to ransom. I tried to transfer the domain twice in the lead up to the renewal, but I am guessing they were ignored.

The domain is not registered to me any more, and 1&1 are wanting me to pay huge fees to get MY domain going again.

Their support works in a 24 hour cycle. I post something, 24 hours later they reply, and so on.

I have put a complaint into ICANN, who is suppose to keep all these clowns in check. I have had a reply, but I wonder if they are a toothless tiger when dealing with registrars.

Anyway.. the blog is currently working on the ugly blogger address rather than only.adayinthe.com, which I like a lot more.

The song to best sum up my mood on this – Tom Waits, take it away !

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